Part 15

The most noteworthy event in Cocky M‘Cann’s history up to its ninth year was the accident by which he broke his arm and became for some weeks an inmate of the Ballygowran Union Infirmary. That this disaster befell him in the course of a repeatedly-forbidden attempt to mount Mr Scanlon’s cross mare, and that he himself laid all the blame on the bosthoons who “were after coverin’ her wid an ojis ould bit of sackin’ as slithery as ice, the way nobody could get e’er a firm holt of her at all,” were characteristic features easily recognisable by any of Cocky’s acquaintances. That it _had_ befallen him anyhow seemed a very serious matter to himself, but still more so to his mother, upon whom it entailed the grievous necessity of a temporary separation from her idolised only child. Nevertheless, his removal beyond reach of her petting and humouring gave him leisure to draw the morals pointed by his own doing and suffering, and to study various object lessons that were set before him as he roved convalescent through the wards. But although these were not wholly without effect, and although he did return to Ballylogan a few degrees less headstrong than he had left it, he had unluckily taken up one new notion which tended to obscure any traces of improvement, and even led his neighbours occasionally to pronounce him “twyste as ungovernable as he was before.”

This notion was a firm belief that during his sojourn in hospital he had acquired such skill in medicine and surgery as fully qualified him to prescribe for any of his ailing fellow-creatures, or to operate upon them, as circumstances seemed to demand. Of course, if Cocky had confined himself to entertaining this vainglorious opinion, it would have been a very harmless vanity, calling for nothing more censorious from his elders than: “Och, now, isn’t it the quare, ould-fashioned crathur?” But that was by no means the case. Cocky always had a perilous propensity for putting his theories into practice, nor did he forbear to do so here whenever he saw a chance. And in consequence he became more than ever a terror to adjacent owners of small live stock, human and otherwise. Mrs M‘Loughlin, for instance, was only just in the nick of time, by the best of good luck, to prevent him from administering to her little Lizzie a murky mixture compounded of varnish, washing-soda, soft soap and tea, which he declared looked and smelt the very same as the black bottle he used to be seeing Nurse Lane at the Infirmary curing hundreds and thousands of childer out of, that was worse with the whooping-cough than Lizzie.

Luck did not always intervene so opportunely. In the case of the Nolans’ duck circumstances enabled Cocky to carry out his treatment with more freedom from interference. Having kept his patient under observation for some time, he had formed the opinion that it was “waddling as crooked as a ram’s horn,” and furthermore that “the left leg was bruck on it, and had a right to be plastered up stiff,” in the manner, as much as possible, of a fractured limb, which he had watched with interest during his attendance at his medical school; and the result was that after a day’s anxious search the hapless fowl was discovered helplessly rooted to a retired spot by the ponderous ball of mortar and clay in which one leg had been encased. When extricated with difficulty its lameness appeared to be so much aggravated that Mrs Nolan was presently obliged to kill it to save its life, at a dead loss. “The finest young duck,” she protested, “in the parish, and worth every penny of half-a-crown, if it wasn’t only for disthruction bein’ done on it by a bould-behaved little tormint, that the polis ought to be walkin’ off to the lock-up out of dacint people’s way, if the seargint was good for anythin’ else except playin’ poker in the barrack-room and not mindin’ his business.” It is fair to note, on the other hand, how, in Mrs M‘Cann’s opinion, so confident as to be proclaimed loudly from her own front door: “One-and-six would ha’ bought the last feather on the crathur’s back twyste over, and divil a much else anybody’d ha’ got off it--a skinny little bag o’ bones, wid ne’er a penn’orth of dirty male thrown to it ever since it looked out of the shell.” As for Cocky, in response to all upbraiding he simply “gave impidence,” and declared with exasperated regret that: “If the fool of a baste ’ud ha’ kep’ aisy wid its quackin’ and bawlin’ he’d have had it grandly cured soon enough, for there was nothin’ else ’ud ha’ been bringin’ anybody next or nigh th’ ould shed wunst in a month of Sundays.”

The duck’s fate thrilled from end to end of the M‘Canns’ cabin-row, and the shock would have been more entirely unpleasurable if it had happened at the expense of some family other than the Nolans. They had never been very well liked at Ballylogan, especially since a married daughter and son-in-law had come to live with them. Nobody, indeed, had much to say against old Jim Nolan, nor the daughters, Katty and Anne, while the sayings against his wife and the two Gildeas were rather vague, being seldom more definite than statements which set forth that Mrs Nolan was a quare one, and that Patsy Gildea had the face of an ass. Widow Gilletty gave voice to the prevailing sentiment when she remarked of the Gildea-Nolan alliance that “by the rule of contraries she’d have expected that Rose to have took up wid some dacinter man than himself.” Still, this hazy misliking would have in a measure toned down the neighbours’ disapproval of Cocky’s unsuccessful experiment, had not their righteous wrath been sustained by a strong sense of the possibility that he might at any moment seek a subject among their own belongings, an uneasiness which found relief in anticipating the curtailment of Cocky’s ill-employed hours of idleness by his attendance at the Letterowen National School. He had lately begun his education there in accordance with directions left by his seafaring father, happily so much to his taste that he really followed the line of least resistance in carrying them out. Enforced abstinence now whetted his appetite for knowledge until he was eager to resume his studies almost before Mrs M‘Cann considered his recovery sufficiently complete. The daily setting forth of Cocky M‘Cann on an absence of several hours’ duration was viewed with complacency by the eye of Ballylogan. His mother’s tendency to regret was too trivial an exception to be regarded as more than, so to speak, a very slight cast in that composite orb.

Before long, however, his schooling was again interrupted, this time by a local epidemic of influenza, which caused a prolongation of the Christmas holidays. They were at Ballylogan a dismal season, what with one thing and another, including, it must be said, the presence of Cocky, who turned the calamity to his own purposes. His pleasure was to call upon house-bound sufferers, whom if he could not always persuade patiently to receive his medicine, he not seldom succeeded in seriously alarming by the grave nature of his diagnoses. “I declare to goodness, ma’am,” Mrs Sweeny reported to a crony, “it’s terrified entirely me poor sister was yesterday evenin’ wid the romancin’ he had out of him. Sittin’ all of a shake in her chair she was when I come in, and says I to meself the minyit I laid eyes on her: ‘As sure as anythin’, the woman’s got the shiverin’ ague;’ but says she to me ’twas just the turn she was after gettin’ wid the awful talk of Cocky M‘Cann. For says she he run in and tould her he well knew by the look of her it was mortal bad she was wid ivery sort of desperit sickness. ‘Bedad,’ says she, ‘I couldn’t make an offer at repaitin’ the quare-soundin’ words he said was ailin’ me; for,’ says she, ‘I never heard the like of them before--not wid Dr Whyte himself,’ says she. ‘And sure,’ says she to me, ‘if it was about gettin’ her death she was wid any nathural description of complaint, that might be no more than the will of God, and some sinse and raison in it.’ But what all that Cocky was after tellin’ her was a dale worse than the _new-money_ or the _bluerissy_, and it gave her the cowld creeps. And to the back of that, there was some manner of outrageous ould brash he was biddin’ her cure herself wid--lamp-oil and traicle and salt--I dunno the half of it--and axin’ me she was should she be thryin’ it. So says I to her, if she’d be said by me, she’d just dhrink a good sup of hot buttermilk-whey, and let alone meddlin’ wid any of the spalpeen’s prescriptions--set him up--that were fit to poison the parish. But sure now, ma’am, Mrs M‘Cann had a right to keep the tormintin’ brat at home, instead of him to be runnin’ into other people’s houses, and frightenin’ them out of their misfortnit minds.” To whom Julia Hogan replied: “Och, Mrs M‘Cann is it? Sure she’s that foolish about him, it’s my belief she consaits he’s the great docther entirely. If he bid her take and ait the ashes off the hearth she’d be apt to go do it; and as for him minding anythin’ she said, she might all as well be spakin’ to the sparras hoppin’ in the hedges.”

Several other neighbours were visited with similar warnings and advice, which Cocky’s mother was in truth quite powerless to prohibit. But before school opened again his attention was diverted from the health of Ballylogan by a momentous occurrence. It was a piece of great luck, nothing less than his picking up on the road an envelope containing a five-pound note. The white cover had not a stroke of writing on it, and the note, its sole contents, looked speckless too, as if little handled. Now, however, it was subjected to much fingering and minute scrutiny by a selection of the M‘Canns’ acquaintances, losing under the process some of its unsullied crispness, while its genuine character as a Bank of Ireland note, worth a twelve months’ rent and more, seemed to be thereby only the firmlier established. Opinion was far less decided about the probable way in which it had come to be so improbably lying on the path under O’Carroll’s fence, just at the gap where the Ballylogan children climb up and down to and from school. The most opposite views, again, were held as to what Mrs M‘Cann should do with this treasure-trove. They ranged from those of the rigid moralist who laid down the stern law that “she had a right to go straight off and lave it wid the polis or Father Mooney,” to the reckless declaration that she would be “the biggest fool ever walked if she didn’t spind ivery pinny of it just as she pleased.” In the end she compromised the matter by determining to put it up safely until she could consult Himself, otherwise Bernard M‘Cann, who was expected home from a voyage in a few weeks’ time.

This arrangement met with, on the whole, approval, not being opposed even by Cocky, who was actually almost slightly over-awed by the magnitude of his own achievement. The possibility of personally consuming such vast wealth did not occur to his wildest imagination, and he readily assented to the bestowal of the precious envelope in a recondite nook. But he did make his find a pretext for demanding more than usually frequent pennies from his mother. “Just you wait, then, till I come home wid the next pounds-and-pounds note I get, me good woman,” he would retort at any demur. And he so often heard laudatory comments upon “the cuteness of the crathur, mind you, that had the sinse to know it was somethin’ val’able in place of to be tearin it up the way the other childer’d ha’ been apt to do,” that, what with conceit of wisdom, and exultance in many extra sugar-sticks, his elation waxed apace. In fact, his spirit might at this time have been augured strutting with very appropriate gait towards an imminent fall.

As for Mrs M‘Cann, the keen edge of her pleasure at their good luck was prematurely turned by a misfortune commonplace enough--too common--in the shape of a bad toothache which presently attacked her. Upon its advent all her joy in the prospect of riches vanished away with the promptitude which occasionally disposes us to wonder that happiness, perpetually suspended at the mercy of any one among a myriad nerve threads, should ever attain to even the briefest span of existence. Being a very robust person, she naturally took a despondent view of her case, and when the malady had tormented her for a night and a day she lost hope and temper. She morosely repelled the neighbours’ sympathy, and even Cocky found his proffers of infallible remedies, extraction included, received with testy curtness, a novel and disconcerting experience, which made him all the more anxious that a state of things so uncongenial should come to a speedy end. He was far from pleased at being summarily told to run off wid himself and lave moidherin’ a body gabbin’ about what they done in the Infirmary; ’twas no manner of use, and the cowld pitaties ’ud do plinty well enough for the dinner; _she_ didn’t want anythin’ at all, and couldn’t be bothered warmin’ them up.

It was on his way to fetch a jug of water from the public pump, about sunset, that Cocky fell in with Mrs Gildea, going the same errand. Chiefly out of perversity, he held this unpopular person in somewhat high esteem, and treated her to more civility than he generally bestowed upon the other neighbours. Mrs Gildea had just then been having words with her husband, who was sitting, head in hands, on a tub at her father’s door. Her words had been to the effect that if there was a bigger ould slouch in the country than himself, she didn’t know where he look for him. Tom Gildea, whose several questionable qualities did not, to do him justice, comprise a huffy temper, had merely replied: “The county be choked. Sure what chance has a man to be doin’ anythin’ in the likes of this little ould glory-hole? Onless he’d the luck of the young rapscallion there I see runnin’ out of Mrs M‘Cann’s house, that’s after pickin’ up a fortin off the road, would ha’ took the two of us over to the States you do be ravin’ about.” To which his wife had rejoined, with acrimony: “Bedad, then, it’s one while a lazy divil like you’d be pickin’ up e’er a fortin in the States, or any place else.”

But when, by-and-by, not many yards away, she overtook Cocky M‘Cann at the pump, her manner and speech were bland and suave. Mrs M‘Cann, she said to him, was a very lucky woman to own a sinsible, handy boy, that would be fetchin’ her in her jugs of wather, let alone findin’ her a pocketful of money, and handin’ her ivery pinny of it to keep, which was more than many a one would ha’ done. This flattery was especially refreshing to Cocky, who had missed his usual household affluence of it, and he responded by pumping for Mrs Gildea so vigourously that her jug suddenly overflowed into her shoes. “Och, bad luck to you--to the ould spout of it that’s quare,” she said, with a jump backwards. “But sure there’s no harm meant or done. Is it wetted you are, sonny dear? Well, now, you’re a good boy, and the next time you get anythin’ on the road, I only hope you’ll be bringin’ it in to me. I might be chance have a load of sweeties to swap for it.”

“There mightn’t ever be anythin’ more on the road again,” Cocky said, discreetly avoiding a committal of himself to this barter.

“Ah, sure it’s just jokin’ I am,” said Mrs Gildea, “for, of coorse, you’d be a-bringin’ whatever it was home to your mammy, to put up somewhere safe, the way she’s after doin’ wid the five-pound note, I’ll be bound.”

“We have so,” said Cocky.

“I wouldn’t suppose she’d be apt to be tellin’ _you_, now, what place she’s keepin’ it in,” said Mrs Gildea. “She’d liefer not, for fear you’d be meddlin’ wid it, and losin’ it on her.”

“Oh, wouldn’t she not?” said Cocky. “When only for me she’d never ha’ thought of the little ould black tay-caddy in the houle in the wall, back of the dresser, by the fut of the bed, that’s a dale the best place to be keepin’ it in.”

“Why, tubbe sure, and so it is. Yourself was the cute one to be thinkin’ of it. Back of the dresser, be the fut of the bed--so that’s where she has it, and a very handy, safe place entirely. You needn’t be lettin’ on to her that you was tellin’ me; not that I’d be passing any remarks about it, no fear. It’s nothin’ to me where other people do be keepin’ their ould tay-caddies. And what’ll your poor mammy do widout you at all, to be runnin’ her messages for her, when you’re prisintly goin’ back again to the school?”

“To-morra I’m goin’,” said Cocky. “But she’s well able to be fetching the wathur and everythin’ herself, only she’s bad these two days wid the toothache, and as cross as the cats. Not a bit of her would thry the cowld starch poultice I bid her, or I daresay she’d be well agin now. But she might be better in the mornin’.”

On the contrary, however, in the morning Mrs M‘Cann was worse, or at anyrate looked so, because her face had swelled all on one side; “as big as two sizeable heads of cabbage,” Cocky assured Mrs Gildea, whom he found waiting for him when he passed her door on his way back from the pump, before breakfast, with a can of water. At this time Cocky was under some concern about his mother’s affliction, and this from fairly disinterested motives, as his absence all day at school would make her doleful and irascible mood a matter of small importance to himself personally. His wish for her relief was, therefore, mainly not a self-regarding sentiment, though he did in some measure consider the possible effect upon the replenishing of his dinner-basket.

“The face of her swelled up awful, and got ne’er a wink of sleep the whole night?” Mrs Gildea repeated upon hearing these symptoms. “Deed now, the poor woman’s to be pitied. But look here, sonny, I’ve got a little drop of stuff here, you might be givin’ her, would make her sleep grand, and do her all the benefit ever was.” She showed, from beneath her shawl, a hand holding a small, nearly empty bottle. “It always sent me poor father-in-law off like a top, when he was bad a couple of years ago, every time he took it; you might as well ha’ been offerin’ to wake up a one of the hearth-stones as him, ten minyits after he’d had his dose of it. Little enough of it he left behind him; but there’s somethin’ better than a small-sized spoonful in the bottle yet, and that ’ud do her finely. So just bring it home to her, there’s a good boy, and bid her dhrink it straight off, the way she may git somethin’ you may call a sleep, and as like as not be quit of the ugly toothache agin she wakes.”

“There wouldn’t be an atom of use biddin’ her take it,” said Cocky, “or anythin’ else there wouldn’t. I tould her of plinty of things to cure herself wid, but she won’t touch e’er a one of them. As headstrong as can be she is over it. She’s past _my_ conthrol,” Cocky asserted, solemnly, adopting a somewhat familiar phrase, not without enjoyment of it. “So you may be keepin’ the little ould bottle.” He was not quite sure whether he regretted or rejoiced to have this reason for rejecting Mrs Gildea’s offer. Certainly he did wish for his mother’s cure; but that it should be wrought by another person’s advice and assistance, when his own was disregarded and disparaged, would have seemed a very undesirable fulfilment of his desire. On the whole, probably, he was glad of the excuse. But Mrs Gildea persisted. “Sure people do often be conthrairy like in themselves when they’re sick,” said she. “It’s humourin’ them one must be in a way. Wouldn’t she be takin’ e’er a sup of tay now?”

“And what else would I be fetchin’ the wather for if it wasn’t to boil the kettle?” said Cocky. “She says a hot sup might be apt to do her good.”

“Well, thin, I’ll tell you how you could conthrive. Just git her attintion disthracted a bit, and slip what’s in the bottle, body and bones, into her cup, when she isn’t lookin’. Ne’er a taste she’ll get off it in the strong tay, but drink it down iligant unbeknownst, if you do the way I bid you, like a clever boy. And when you run home this evenin’ you’ll find she’s after sleepin’ beautiful all the while you were away, and sorra the talk of any more toothache,” Mrs Gildea predicted, holding out the little bottle.

Cocky stood irresolute. The plan had an attractive aroma of practical joking, while the promise of a mother once more cheerful and laudatory was undeniably alluring; but the conditions galled his professional pride.

“And you needn’t ever be lettin’ on I gave it to you, or anything about it,” Mrs Gildea continued, “for very belike she might be mad wid us.” This hint perceptibly strengthened Cocky’s inclination towards compliance, for it showed that she did not propose to claim any credit from the cure, which seemed to him some amends for being unable to do so himself. Yet his jealous dread of a rival was a stubborn thing, and he hesitated still. Perhaps it would ultimately have prevailed with him, had not little Tim Daly happened just then to pass, pouring his soul, in rapt enjoyment, through a newly-acquired penny whistle. Tim’s face, always of a rather comic full-moon pattern, was for the time being a caricature, because he had blown “the swoln cheek of a trumpeter;” and the sight of the grotesque profile somehow recalled to Cocky his mother’s visage as he had last beheld it, distorted and woebegone. Whereupon he suddenly extended his hand, saying, “Gimme.” He had resolved, not without an effort of difficult virtue, to try Mrs Gildea’s remedy.